Big whale 'dances' with dolphins

A large gray whale was in a playful mood on Monday, rolling around and doing the backstroke as dolphins played alongside, unusual behavior captured on video by two charter boats off the Orange County coast.

Capt. Dave Anderson, owner of Captain Dave's Dolphin and Whale Safari, called it a "deep-sea dance spectacle," that he's never seen before.

The gray whales are on its migration south from Alaska to the warmer waters of Baja, and this 35-40 foot whale decided to hang out and play for about 10 minutes with a pod of pacific white-sided dolphins.

"He was going upside down and enticing dolphins to slide across his belly," Anderson said in a video that captured the moment.

The gray whales are on their annual round-trip journey that takes them about 12,000 miles to mate in warmer waters and give birth to their calves. The pacific white-sided dolphin is an "energetic favorite dolphin" of Anderson, according to the release on the sighting.

"They are a beautiful dolphin with a unique face and coloring. Though they're normally seen during the winter months off Southern California, this particular dolphin species has been noticeably absent with just two previous sightings since last October, making yesterday's encounter extra special," he wrote. "Southern California has the greatest density of dolphins per square mile than anywhere on Earth. We have five species of dolphin in the area."

Just last week, a large pod of about 1,000 common dolphins swimming in a "stampede" alongside Capt. Dave's boat made international news, going viral on YouTube. That video now has more than 2,680,000 page views.

Both Capt. Dave's and a Dana Wharf Sportsfishing and Whale Watching charter captured the latest spectacle on video.

Dana Wharf Capt. Corey Hall said he's seen whales interact with dolphins before, but he's never seen one behave the way it did Monday afternoon.

"The fact that the whale was interacting with another species of marine mammal is always interesting," he said. "But I had never seen it on its back like this. And this went on for about a mile. The whale is upside down providing a wake for these dolphins to surf. It's pretty crazy."

At the end, the whale did two 360-degree spins, and then dipped down into the ocean.

"I've been doing this for 21 years, and I've never seen anything like it," he said. "We have some veteran whale watchers with us, they were all saying, 'this just doesn't happen.' It was pretty awesome."

After they were done, the whale continued south and the dolphins headed north.

"They were just playing, plain and simple," Hall said. "It was just a really awesome experience, it was very neat to see."